Intrapreneurship Conference in Barcelona

Philippe MEDA -

I’ve already indicated that I will be a speaker at the BLEND Conference in Lyon, october 1 and 2. Let me also signal the INTRAPRENEURSHIP Conference in Barcelona, december 12 and 13, organized by Barcelona Activa and Global Entreprise. During this event Stéphanie and myself will both present a keynote and a workshop.

Mentors sharing their entrepreneurial experience to accelerate intrapreneurs’ projects

(Keynote, Stéphanie)

Learning to be an intrapreneur and developing entrepreneurial skills cannot happen in the classroom. Helping an intrapreneur to develop his project lies in the development of critical reflexivity rather than increasing the knowledge base: internalization of knowledge, ability to improvise and empowerment of the leader. Among the specific arrangements for accompanying adult development, we find counselling, coaching, training and mentoring.

All these forms of support are designed to help a person in his personal and professional development through the transmission of knowledge, experience, know-how and skills. Mentoring is a form of support that helps mentees to find meaning while remaining in an experiential mode of learning. In his activity, the mentor is defined as an experienced person who gives his time, with no relation of  interest, shares his experience and offers a space for reflection in order to facilitate the transition of a novice towards performance in his new role. Mentoring provides a neo-entrepreneur with the experience of an entrepreneur who has already lived the creation, growth or takeover of a company.

Knowing its challenges, and pitfalls, he can share the keys to accelerate the process which can be complex and stressful. In addition, the mentor has no interest in the mentee’s business so he can provide a neutral and benevolent help to the mentee who feels hence less lonely in his decision-making process and may also confront ideas, take a step back and consider his entrepreneurial project as a whole.

The intrapreneurship solution to the innovator’s dilemma

(Keynote, Philippe)

Most innovative companies once in the market, end up following customers’ requests, and fail to be able to renew their perspective. This is the classical innovator’s dilemma. Intrapreneurship strategies reveal themselves as very solid ways of quenching these structural and cultural short-comings, by reconnecting teams that have become risk-adverse to the innovation playfield.

Setting up an internal incubator in a company for dummies

(Workshop, Philippe)

This workshop will guide you through the main steps to build from the ground up an internal incubator, deflating 4 typical myhts of intrapreneurship along the way.

  1. The CEO and the board don’t really care: how to “sell” the idea of intrapreneurship and get both empowerment, and freedom within the organization to build the program;
  2. Idea generation is not that important: most programs are bent on generating and screening employees ideas, which is typically the “easy” part and not that productive in the long run;
  3. You won’t find your next line of business: we’ll see why most intrapreneurship programs shouldn’t be about finding an “unexpected goldmine” but about educating doers and risk-takers within the company;
  4. You may succeed once, but rarely a second season: intrapreneurship programs as internal incubators require you to build a virtuous circle, taking extra care of the intrapreneurs leaving the program and returning to usual treadmill. They should be your strongest assets, and actually are the real goal of such programs.

How to motivate and get the best out of Intrapreneurs through mentorship to achieve succesful intrapreneurial projects

(Workshop, Stéphanie)

During this workshop, Stéphanie will share the 4 main ingredients for a mentoring relationship to be effective – satisfactory to both parties, enabling learning and helping to achieve goals for the intrapreneur (the mentee) and his mentor:

  1. Credible and engaged mentors with relational competencies.
  2. Engaged mentees who have relational competencies and need support.
  3. Dyad’s interpersonal and professional fit.
  4. A specific mentoring style.

She will also give the keys to design and implement an efficient mentoring programme from the attraction, selection, training and matching of participants (intrapreneurs and mentors), to the evaluation of such programmes.

Of course, we won’t be alone and many fantastic speakers will be there as well. Just be warned that by design, the number of seats is very limited (50 max probabbly) and you’ve seen it first here. If you are interested get a reservation as fast as possible.